Impossible Arabesque in Five Acts
by Leshachikha
Summary: After the events of GOF, a stranger weeps at Remus’s table. After OOTP Ginny finds the past often lingers into the future, Ron and Hermione try to take comfort in each other, Luna fends off reality with a vengeance, and Harry buys a lemon ice cream.
1. Raincoats

**Title**: Impossible Arabesque In Five Acts **Author:** Leshachikha 

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** There's some m/m, a tiny bit of f/f, m/f, talk about sex, talk about suicide, implications of rape… and a helluva lot of internal monologue. Act Two is has an R rating, as it contains the explicit sexual/suicidal stuff. None of it is PWP or smut, though. It's disturbing stuff, but a mature, not depressed 15 year old could handle it (mature being the operative word). Act Five has some vaguely suicidal like stuff too. All the others are PG-13. 

**Spoilers:** All 5 books

**Genre:** Angst, Angst, Angst, Angst, did I mention angst? Some romance thrown in too.

**Pairings:** Remus/Sirius, Ron/Hermione, Ginny/Tom(kinda) Ginny/Hermione (kinda) Ginny/Harry (again, kinda)

**Summary:** After the events of GOF, a stranger weeps at Remus's table. After OOTP Ginny finds the past often lingers into the future, Ron and Hermione try to take comfort in each other, Luna fends off reality with a vengeance, and Harry buys a lemon ice cream. R rating people.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter. Nyah!

**A/N:** Inspired by the songs of Paolo Conte. Angsty slashiness ahead! Happy endings are, for the most part, not. Hope you enjoy it!

Act One: Raincoats- Forgotten Love "E ricomincera Come da un rendezvous 

Parlando piano tra noi du.

Scendo giu 

A prendermi un caffe

Scusami un attimo…

Passa un mano qui,

Cosi, sopra I miei lividi.

Ma come piove bene

Sugl'impermeablili…"

-Paolo Conte "Raincoats"

_(translation: And it'll start again / like a secret meeting / where we speak quietly between the two of us .// I'm going downstairs/to have a coffee / excuse me a moment… / A hand brushes past here / just like that, over my bruises // My goodness how hard it is raining / on the raincoats)_

         The silence grows long and heavy between them. They have exhausted all the convenient topics. The urgent messages have been delivered. Updates on the well-being of others have been exchanged. Inquiries about each other's health duly answered. They sit at the kitchen table, each unwilling to look at the other. Rather, they clutch their mugs tightly, with whitened knuckles, watching the rain flow down the window glass, listening to the distant roll of afternoon thunder. They do not discuss the weather. No, they would rather die than discuss the weather, no matter how oppressive their awkwardness becomes. It would be too much of an affront to what they had. Better to waste away in silence, trying to imagine it companionable, than to give up and fall into small talk.

         He sighs very softly, rubbing his forehead where a bruise still lingers, like a smudge of dust. The tea has gone cold by now, surely, he thinks, examining it. He sips it anyway. It washes like moss and stone and icy water on his tongue. He shudders and puts it abruptly down, the clink of the china uncomfortably loud on the wood. Thunder reverberates around the kitchen that is lit only by the gray light from the window and then disappears into the trickling rain. He used to have a monopoly on suffering, he thinks. The wrinkles around his eyes are not new. His scars are old, etched into his flesh decades ago. But the man who sits across from him, his eyes possess a darkness that they never held before. His mouth is straight and grim, framed by deep lines. It forms no sweetly reckless words, nor does it flash brightly over brilliant, straight teeth. It is not the soft, warm, elastic redness he remembers from his youth. It is hard for him to imagine what this man has been through. It is what has turned the man across the table from him into a stranger. He has changed so much.

         "I never imagined you living like this, Remus," says the stranger, gesturing about the kitchen. The movement and speech come awkwardly, unpracticed. 

         There seems to be no answer to this. Remus finds he still cannot meet his eyes, so he concentrates on the vase of drooping tulips that lies between them.  Red fading to pink. Pink turning to gray. Life dropping petals and turning to ash. Present slipping imperceptibly, inevitably into past.

         "Like an old maid, I mean," he elaborates clumsily. "You live like Arabella. I knew you weren't a manly man, but even for a queer this is a bit much! Honestly, floral curtains? Tulips on your table, Moony?" He tries to grin, like he used to, but it falls short of his eyes. "Moony?" It is not the same. For some reason, it infuriates Remus.

         "Don't call me that! My flowers all wilted years ago!" Remus cries with sudden violence, spilling the tea into a great flood on the table top. The stranger jumps, taken aback. Remus winces at the strangeness of his words. The silence falls again, but it now crackles and sways with a new, inexplicable urgency. They stare at each other, the tea sliding down the table leg and falling to a puddle on the tiles. Then, very slowly, deliberately, the stranger leans across the table, his gaze focused very intently on Remus's.

         "I had no flowers," he whispers very harshly. Remus thinks for a moment that the stranger is going to laugh wildly, but his voice breaks mid-sentence. And he starts to weep. 

         Remus stares at him, helpless and silent. The hoarse sobs echo in the kitchen, melding with the falling rain, threading through the cheery rose cotton curtains. He sobs into the table, unkempt hair concealing his face. Remus does not know what to do. He'd never seen him cry before. The cold tea is dripping on the floor. He wonders if it would be insensitive to get a towel to mop it up while the stranger was crying. Crying… _He has changed, he has changed…_ The stranger's hand is sprawled across the table, unconsciously crushing a fallen petal so that the dust swims and vanishes on the wet tabletop. Remus studies the hand vaguely. His mind seems to have deserted him. He notes, with curious detachment, that he does not remember the thin, pale lines that crisscross his knuckles. His hand is much older, he decides. He can see each pumping vein underneath the translucent skin.

           However, Remus thinks, he cannot just let this stranger that has come to sit at his table cry. He ought to do _something_. He takes the hand gently and soothingly strokes the scars with his thumb. 

         "C'mon," he hears himself whisper. "Don't do this… It's okay,_ it's okay_… Don't cry, please…" 

         The sobs halt. The fingers that have intertwined with his shudder briefly. The stranger lifts his head. _No tears,_ Remus thinks. _No tears…They are all spent in the rock of Azkaban…They are all soaked in the rock in Azkaban… _

         He does not protest when the stranger stands with a start, knocking over his chair. He is quiet as they crash savagely to the tile, the stranger's lips moving hungrily against his own. He is unaware that the stranger whose cold, unfamiliar hands are fumbling fervently for buttons will fall into darkness. He cannot know that this man who ought to have been his friend and his lover and the life he always wanted will go uncried for, that he will be consumed with numbness when he sees what happened, that the tears that should have streamed will refuse to come, as if they all poured down the misty window glass on a gray afternoon that should have been happy. 


	2. Happy Feet

_Act Two: Happy Feet- Sexual Love_

"Cosa leggerai?

Con che libro affascini il tuo cuore?

E se ti perderai

Nel labirinto di un amaro autore?"

-Paolo Conte "Happy Feet"

_(Translation: What will you read? / With what book will you enchant your heart? // And what if you lose yourself / in the maze of an embittered author?)_

            Her life, she thinks, has been a molasses slow, infuriating plod to the realization that she does not like herself. Today that seems especially apparent. She sits ten meters up in the oak tree, the wind swaying her unwashed hair, contemplating whether it would be worth the trouble to fall out, maybe break her neck, and see what would happen. Would it hurt, she wonders? Would she die instantly, or would there be a moment where she would see her broken body and see the black blood stain the ground? Her father and brothers and Harry and Dean would insist that it was accident, of that she was sure. _She must've slipped…_ _She's climbed that tree so many times, I can't believe she fell…Maybe the limb shifted…Her shoe must've been loose…_ Her mother, however, and Hermione… They would suspect, but they wouldn't speak of it. They'd wonder forever, but never be entirely certain.  

            Sometimes she wonders why she is a Griffindor. She is far from brave. She remembers the first time after the Chamber that Harry came. She saw him, saw the dark hair, and her hands went cold as ice.  She spent a terrible, maddening breakfast, face aflame and stomach churning. When it was finally over she ran to her room and shuddered for hours, soaked with a cold sweat. Whenever she looked at him that summer, she remembered. Felt the hands again, sweeping over her body, the shivery soft voice caressing her ear. She rages with disgust at herself as she recalls how the first time she had liked it, urged him on. It had been freedom, revolting, violating freedom. Every time she remembered it, in those unbearable summers after the Chamber, she would run to her bedroom, lock the door, and throw the covers over her head, trying to forget how he had praised her body, how she had glowed under his fingertips, how he forced it when she realized what he was, how she almost longed for his intruding, intoxicating tongue to touch her just one more time.

            For years after the Chamber, she would watch Harry from afar. Her friends noticed, Hermione noticed, her brothers noticed that she stared transfixedly at him. So she pretended. She would squeal rapturously about his eyes to her friends, hiding what she really wanted to see. She would blush girlishly, innocently when Hermione gave her knowing looks. She would cry worthless tears when her brothers teased her about him, trying to forget how she wondered whom he thought of when he was alone, his sheets twisted wet and hot beneath him. She hated it, hated pretending, hated lying, hated feeling dirty.  

            The sound of voices below startles her and makes her wildly grasp the tree. Cursing her balance, she looks down and sees a shock of red, a cloud of brown, and withdraws into the leaves. Ron and Hermione... Peering through the foliage, she watches them together. It has been obvious to everyone that they have been seeing each other, despite their foolish attempts at secrecy.  Her mother has been happy. She's always loved Hermione (excepting when she thought she was a slut, courtesy of Rita Skeeter) and is happy that Ron loves her too. Only Ginny is unhappy. She does not know why. 

            "Harry's in a bad way, Ron, I just know it," Hermione was saying tearfully, wringing her hands.  "He's taking S-sirius's death hard."

            "Of course he is, Mione. D'you expect him to be perfectly fine after he loses someone that close to him," asks Ron wearily, slumping against the tree trunk. The hot wind rustles the dry leaves and tears one loose. It flies away, over the hill and out of sight. 

            "No, but…" She pauses and searches for words. "He- he's written me, told me that Dumbledore has forbade him from receiving the Prophet. He's scared that something's happening, that Dumbledore thinks he isn't ready to handle bad news or that he'll fly off the handle if he hears anything."

            "Well, he's right, isn't he?"

            "Harry or Dumbledore?"

            "Both." Ron pulls Hermione down into his lap. They sit together in silence, Ron absently winding a strand of her hair around his finger.

            "Ron…" she says after a moment. "Ron, what if he does hear how many people are dying? What if he doesn't? Oh God, Ron…" She looks down fearfully, biting her lip. "I… I'm afraid he's going to kill himself."

            Ron is silent. Ginny leans down further into the leaves, watching even more intently. Hermione's hair catches the afternoon sun and flashes, momentarily blinding.

            "Ron…" Hermione says very softly, studying his face. "I know that Percy's…death… was hard… But you can't feel guilty about it... Please, please…"

            "He was no longer my brother," Ron proclaims, but his voice cracks. He turns his head away and Ginny knows that he is crying. She scowls. Percy's suicide was a foolish thing. After all, Father and Mother would've accepted him back into the family after he'd been fired, and even Ron would follow their example eventually. Even though she never would. Never. She remembered how he doubted her, how he thought Harry had bribed her to make a story of being kidnapped by You-Know-Who. She hates- hated- him because his suspicion allowed small doubts to creep into her mind and overflow into her dreams. What she would have done at that age, if Harry had asked her, she wonders… What would she do now?

            Hermione has wrapped her slim, white arms around Ron, whispering something into his ear too softly to catch from above. He abruptly pulls her close and kisses her. "Ron…" Ginny hears her murmur. "Ron…I'm scared…I'm so scared…" And a strangled sob into Ron's neck.  He makes a strange sound in his throat, something low and frightened. His hands, Ginny notices, are very white as they work up into Hermione's baggy t-shirt.

            Ginny feels an inexplicable stab of jealousy. Why? She wonders. Is it because she longs for such intimacy? Because Dean's hands seem to be tethered within two inches of his pockets? Because she is lonely? Or maybe, she thinks, neck prickling as she watches Hermione's flushed red lips, because she wishes Ron's hands were hers? Ginny tries to tear her eyes away from the other girl's chest that has become exposed, silently and hysterically scolding herself. _All you ever think about is sex… You're so dirty… It's wrong, it's disgusting_… But she cannot stop. She watches the awkward movements of flesh on flesh, lets the strange, animal sounds and moans float up to her through the leaves as she sobs with fear and self-recrimination and desire and disgust.   

A/N: Okay. This is chapter was a bit explicit, more so than I usually write, so I feel must explain. It was an attempt to delve into the mind of someone who has been sexually abused. I think that more went on in COS than we know about from the books, or maybe that was even meant to happen in the books (if that makes sense). It fits with Tom Riddles generally f***ed up, evil personality. I put myself in Ginny's proverbial shoes and read some psychological articles about abused children. When some (only some) hit puberty, the general gist is, they feel that all sexual longing is bad or dirty yet can't escape the wages of coming maturity. This can result in suicidal thoughts.  Ginny wants sex on one level, and therefore has many relationships (as shown in OotP). However she is frightened and disgusted on another, so cannot initiate anything herself. She hates these conflicting feelings and starts to hate herself for having them. So. That's my little story about this chapter, if it disturbed anyone.


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